They turned out to be sophisticated fakes that severely embarrassed the Sunday Times, because it ran six pages of the "world exclusive" on April 24 1983 before the truth of the forgery was discovered.
It emerged that Konrad Kujau, an antiques dealer and painter, had faked 60 volumes of diaries. Heidemann, unaware of that fact, negotiated their sale to Germany's Stern magazine for £2.5m. In his turn, Murdoch - in company with Newsweek magazine - agreed to pay about £600,000 for the serial rights.
The incident understandably left the paper and Rupert Murdoch in rather an embarrassing position.
Nick Davies in his book Flat earth news recalls that even though the paper's expert consultant Lord Dacre was expressing doubts about their authenticity,Murdoch famously declared "**** Dacre.....Publish."
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